Back on the track

The cream of the region’s motor sport stars are preparing for Bushy Park, St Philip next month, when the circuit hosts the Williams Industries/Digicel International Race Meet on September 12 and 13.

Round three of the 2015 Seaboard Marine Caribbean Motor Racing Championship (CMRC) is the headline event of an action-packed schedule, with approaching 12 hours of track activity on the Sunday alone.

Reigning CMRC champion Kristian Jeffrey leading the field at Bushy Park last June. (Picture by Kasey Ramoutar)

Organised by Bushy Park Motor Sports Inc (BPMSI), the 23-race programme will also include round four of the Suzuki Challenge Series SR3 Cup and Swift Cup and round three of the Club’s own 2015 Championship . . . a total of nearly 180 racing laps.

Three races each are scheduled for the SR3 Cup and Swift Cup, BPMSI Clubman, Modified Production, SuperSport, SuperModified and Bike classes, plus Hilti Handicap races on two and four wheels.

Once the circuit sessions have come to an end each day, the Barbados Association of Dragsters & Drifters (BADD) will take to the 1/8th-mile drag strip on the northern straight and run into darkness to stage round three of Dragwarz 2015. A test and tune session on Saturday evening will be followed by practice, qualifying, eliminations and –– time permitting –– grudge matches on Sunday evening.

Hometown drivers in host countries Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago made their presence felt in the opening two rounds of the CMRC. Just as Jamaica, which staged the first round at the Jamwest Raceway in March, started the season leading the CMRC Country Championship, so T&T’s Team Tigers have now shifted the balance. After scoring around half the total points awarded at the Wallerfield Raceway in June, T&T now heads the standings with 493 points, almost 80 ahead of Guyana (414pts), while Jamaica (369pts) have slipped to third.

The Cayman Islands (105pts) and Barbados (92pts), which last won the coveted Country Championship in 2011, are currently fourth and fifth. But all is not lost, as Bushy Park prepares to host round three. Drivers will only count their best three scores from the four rounds. The final is at South Dakota in Guyana on November 14 and 15 – which will balance things out over the season, allowing competitors whose budgets prevent them contesting every round or whose race schedules clash still to have the opportunity to achieve a worthwhile result.

BPMSI chairman Sean Maloney noted: “We’ve seen huge interest from all the participating countries and we hope to field the best-ever grids in all of the CMRC groups. We already have drivers committed from Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago, but the final entry list is still a work in progress.

“It is a busy time of year in the regional calendar –– the Jamaica Race Drivers’ Club had their Emancipation of Speed meet at Jamwest last Monday (August 3) and the Guyana Motor Racing & Sports Club ran the National Race of Champions Meet at South Dakota over this past weekend. So we need to await final confirmation of all of the team line-ups, once everyone knows who has cars and bikes that are ready for the trip. Even though we don’t yet know what Barbados will be facing, however strong the regional teams are, you can guarantee that we’ll be ready for them!”

Roger Mayers, the 2011 CMRC champion, has already confirmed that he will be representing the home team. It will be the first time that his Ford Focus has been seen in circuit racing action since its dramatic exit at the Ws Hairpin during last July’s Digicel Williams Industries International Race Meet at Bushy Park. However, he did set a new BADD 1/8th-mile record on the St Philip facility’s drag strip in July when the car returned to competition for the first time. The other members of Team Barbados will be confirmed in the coming weeks.

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